Milly's New Best Friend

Meet Patrick! I wish he was mine, but no, he is my roommate Courtney's 9 week old Cockapoo! He is a precious lil guy and Milly loves playing with a pup who makes her feel like the bigger, badder pup. I foresee lots of PFC in the future.

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A Little Bit of Grace

This week, I ordered some makeup I needed from Sephora, and in order to get up to the free shipping amount, I ordered some Philosophy "Amazing Grace" shower gel.  (The two important shopping mantras my mom instilled in me: 1-Buy now, you can always return it later. 2-Always buy more actual product to avoid paying shipping (within reason) ) Also, I was running out of shower gel.  

The whole reason people buy Philosophy, in my opinion, is the packaging and the descriptions they put on them.  

When I read this description, I couldn't help but think of two of my favorite Grace's (Lauren and Caolina, both of whom I feel confident are a large percentage of my loyal reading base, and both on Apple products no doubt): 

"Amazing Grace Philosphy: Life is a classroom, we are both student and teacher, each day is a test, and each day we receive a passing or failing grade in one particular subject: grace.  Grace is compassion, gratitude, surrender, faith, forgiveness, good manners, reverence, and the list goes on.  it's something money can't buy and credentials rarely produce. being the smartest, the prettiest, the most talented, the richest, or even the poorest can't help.  Being a humble person can, and being a helpful person can guide you through your days with grace and gratitude."  

So here's a little shout out to all of the Grace's out there, and all of us remembering to keep grace in the forefront of our daily thoughts (as tough as that may be), especially as we approach Easter Weekend.  

Barrister's Ball

After all of the race participants cleared out, and I got a good nap in after all of the watching of the runners, we had to get ready to go to our very last Barrister's Ball (aka Law School Prom).

Barrister's Ball is always great because we get to get dressed up and hang out with friends over a good meal.  It's also a little scary because there are some REALLY interesting people in law school, most of whom are would a little tight, and the combination of this and several open bars breeds some pretty awkward scenes.

We started off at Morton's steakhouse.  Our social butterfly friend, Dave, arranged for a bunch of us to meet up in a private room that had a projector where we could all catch the VCU game.  This game was a huge deal for everyone in Richmond, not to mention the VCU fans.  We even had a bit of a hard time getting downtown, as they blocked off several of the streets as soon as the game started, in anticipation of a potential riots in the event that they won.
Watching the game while things were still going well...

Not too enthralled with their performance toward the end...

Mike and me, Lauren & Blake 

We did in fact continue on to the actual event, but of course by that point I totally forgot to take any pictures.  Whoops.  

We had a great time, and only 34 more days until graduation! Hooray! 

Monument Avenue 10k

Personally, I have no desire whatsoever to ever participate in a marathon.  Apparently, I'm in the minority though, because over 41,000 people participated in the Monument Avenue 10k, a famous Richmond event, this past Saturday.

Since Mike lives along Monument, where the race is run, there's quite a flurry of activity outside on race day.  It all starts at about 4am, when they start loudly towing any cars still parked on the street, and the street sweepers start their incessant passing as they spray water and sweep away any debri.   It's pretty weird seeing Monument Avenue so desolate.

It did not stay empty for long though.  The race started at 8:30, and pretty soon the hoards of runners made their way down our side of the road.  

Only 26 minutes after the race begin, the fastest racers were making their way down the other side of the street, about 1 mile away from the finish line (I think?....they were close).  The escort of the police motorcade and the trolley led the way...

Not surprisingly, a Kenyan and an Ethiopian were neck and neck: 

Some other sights from the day: 

                                      

This guy was out starting at about 8am.  Possibly the least effective religious based sign I've ever seen.   I'm sure as soon as the race was over, he resumed his post at the abortion clinic on Grove Ave. where I usually notice the nutsos hanging out.  

I missed the bulk of the race because someone decided it would be a good idea to plan a Junior League volunteering session about two blocks away from the start/finish of the race DURING the race.......yeah. 

There was A LOT of black and gold in support of VCU, as their first run at the Final Four was later that night.

It quite a nuisance to live on the street where this huge event occurs, but also a really cool experience to be in the midst of 40k+ people as they propel themselves 6 miles using their own body strength and energy.  Again, something I do not want to do, but I'm really good at standing on the side of the road/on the porch and watching!